How to Avoid Adding These Red Flags to Your Resume

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Your professional resume speaks loudly to recruiters, even if it’s not a human being. What you put on a resume, what you leave off, and how you present your career and educational history impacts the way that recruiters will react. Does your resume include any potential red flags that could be blocking your way to success? Here are some of the top no-no’s that have no place on your resume.

1. The resume lacks excitement.

Your resume is written out neatly on a standard resume format, so what’s wrong with it? It’s boring and lacks any kind of attention-grabbing elements. Recruiters spend literally 10 seconds or less looking at each resume, even less when they have a large stack to go through. If your resume bores them, you can bet it’s saying you are also a boring person and probably won’t be a good hire. Spice it up with powerful words and a fun-to-read format.

2. No clear career direction.

If you have held a number of jobs over the last couple of years, how do they show that you are progressing in your career? If you are all over the place, we suggest you work with a career coach to determine what your goals will be and how you can best present them on your resume. Make sure you can highlight your growth as a professional, taking on more responsibilities and achieving your goals.

3. Big gaps between jobs.

Many recruiters are still fairly “old school” when it comes to evaluating candidate resumes. If they see large gaps in time between jobs, or dates of employment and education that don’t make sense, this is a huge red flag. Make sure you indicate on your resume what you were doing in between jobs (for example: attending college, volunteering, caring for a child, etc.)

4. Careless mistakes.

If your resume contains spelling mistakes, errors in grammar, and odd sentence structures you can bet that a hiring manager will note this as a sign you are also careless about your work. Make sure to go over your resume with a fine-tooth comb, use a spell checker software, and have another set of eyes on your resume before you send it (and your cover letter) to a company.

 

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